UK trade: January 2025

• The value of goods imports remained stable in January 2025, because a fall in imports from the EU was offset by a rise in imports from non-EU countries.

• The value of goods exports rose by £1.8 billion (6.3%) in January 2025, because of a rise in exports to both EU and non-EU countries.

• Exports of goods to the United States increased by £0.1 billion, the second consecutive monthly rise, while imports of goods from the United States fell by £0.1 billion.

• Early estimates suggest that the value of services imports rose slightly by £0.1 billion (0.5%) in January 2025, and services exports were estimated to have increased by £0.8 billion (1.9%).

• The total goods and services trade deficit widened by £0.5 billion to £5.7 billion in the three months to January 2025, because imports rose more than exports.

• The trade in goods deficit widened by £0.4 billion to £55.6 billion in the three months to January 2025, while the trade in services surplus is estimated to have narrowed slightly by around £0.1 billion to £50.0 billion.

The publication of this UK trade: January 2025 release was delayed from 14 March 2025 to 28 March 2025 because of the combined impact of two separate errors that were identified during quality assurance. This delay was to allow additional time to process and revise our estimates of UK trade to account for these identified errors. Today we have published the full suite of corrected trade in goods and services data alongside this streamlined bulletin.

HMRC data feed correction

During our routine quality assurance, an error was identified in the data that HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) delivered to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) relating to imports of goods from January 2023 to December 2024. HMRC has identified and resolved the cause of the error in the data feed and we have worked together to understand the impact and correct the data in our estimates of UK imports of goods. Further details of this error have been previously communicated in our UK trade: December 2024 statistical bulletin.

This correction mainly affects imports from non-EU countries (Table 1), particularly imports of goods from China and Japan. There has been minimal impact on estimates of imports of goods from the United States.

ITIS correction

During further quality assurance, an error was identified in our International Trade in Services (ITIS) results processing system. This error affected our estimates of both imports and exports of services from 2023 onwards.

The correction to ITIS data has been made alongside other standard revisions to trade in services. This affected reference periods 2023 and 2024, including the benchmarking of our 2024 annual trade in services estimates, which were affected by this error.

While this error affected both imports and exports of services, our estimates of exports of services have seen larger corrections (Table 2). A country breakdown of the services revisions will be available when our full data on trade in services are published in our UK trade in services by partner country release on 25 April 2025.

Pausing of Producer Prices publications 

As we announced on 21 March 2025, during work to improve the systems used to create the Producer Price Index (PPI) and the Services Producer Price Indices (SPPI), our quality assurance identified a problem with the chain-linking methods used to calculate these indices.  

This problem affects some of the deflators used for both trade in goods and trade in services, including the import price indices (IPI) and export price indices (EPI). Further analysis is required to understand the full impact to trade, including effects at a more detailed level, for example by country and commodity. Early analysis suggests that some goods export and import data from 2023 and some goods export data before 2014 may be affected. This impact will be seen in our Chained Volume Measures (CVM) and Implied Deflator (IDEF) series. 

We will provide further information on the likely effects as soon as is practicable.  

In accordance with the National Accounts Revisions Policy, the data in this release have been revised from January 2023 to December 2024 for both goods and services.

The UK leaving the EU and the subsequent transition period, along with the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, supply chain disruption and global recession, have caused higher levels of volatility in trade statistics in recent years. The monthly analysis shows short-term trade movements, but it is important to note that monthly data can be erratic, so movements should be treated with caution.

Data collection changes

Since the UK left the EU on 31 January 2020, the arrangements for how the UK trades with the EU changed.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) implemented some data collection changes following Brexit, which affected statistics on UK trade in goods with the EU. We have made adjustments to our estimates of goods imports from the EU in 2021 and 2022 to account for these changes, however a structural break remains in the full time series for goods imports from and exports to the EU from January 2021.

We advise caution when interpreting and drawing conclusions from these statistics. Our article, Impact of trade in goods data collection changes on UK trade statistics: summary of adjustments and the structural break from 2021, provides more detail.

Data sources

Data from HMRC make up over 90% of trade in goods value and are the main source for this release. Data from the quarterly International Trade in Services (ITIS) Survey make up over 50% of trade in services data. View our UK Trade Quality and Methodology Information (QMI) for more detail.

Data from the International Passenger Survey (IPS) are the main source for travel services. The survey has now resumed following the suspension in 2020, with data for Northern Ireland not currently being recorded.

Unless otherwise specified, data within this bulletin are in current prices and have not been adjusted to remove the effects of inflation. In line with international standards, our headline trade statistics contain the UK's exports and imports of non-monetary gold. More information can be found in our National Accounts article: A brief explanation of non-monetary gold in national accounts.

Method

Trade is measured through both exports and imports of goods and services. Data are supplied by over 30 sources, including several administrative sources, with HMRC being the largest for trade in goods.

Our UK trade figures are produced using country of dispatch, which records imports as coming from the country dispatching the shipments. However, trade figures can also be produced using country of origin, as is used by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). Users should be aware of the different accounting methods used and the resulting differences across trade figures.

Monthly trade in services data are taken from quarterly trade in services data and split across the months within that quarter through estimation. In months where we have a full quarter's data, we revise previous estimates of monthly values within that quarter.

View more detailed information about the methods used to produce UK trade statistics in our UK Trade methodology.

National Statistics designation status

The UK Statistics Authority suspended the National Statistics designation of UK trade (PDF, 72.9KB) on 14 November 2014. We have now responded to all of the specific requirements of the Office for Statistics Regulation's (OSR's) reassessment of UK trade. As part of our engagement with the OSR team, we are sharing our continuous improvement and development plans to support UK trade statistics regaining Accredited official statistics status. We welcome feedback on our new trade statistics, developments, and future plans by email to trade@ons.gov.uk.

Trade asymmetries

Asymmetries can be caused by a range of conceptual and measurement variations between the estimation practices of different countries. Statistical agencies are likely to have different source data, estimation methods, and methodological, geographical, and definitional differences. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) publishes more information on UK trade asymmetries. We publish analysis on trade in services asymmetries in our Asymmetries in trade data articles.

More quality and methodology information (QMI) on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in our UK Trade QMI.